St. Clare's Hospital System is anticipating ambulance response times will increase, on average, between 2 and 4 minutes in five Morris County communities when the organization switches to a regional fleet structure April 12.

"The reason that they're doing this, despite having some financial difficulties ... is that they wanted to be able to continue to serve these communities," St. Clare's marketing communications manager Stephanie Galloway said.

Come mid-month, St. Clare's will end the dedicated, per-town ambulance service it has provided to Rockaway Township, Rockaway Borough, Wharton, Randolph and Mount Arlington.

It'll continue providing the service under the financial terms currently in place — neither patients nor the municipalities will be charged directly. St. Clare's will take payments from insurance companies only.

But that operation has been a financial strain for the hospital system. Mike Ward, executive director of EMS for St. Clare's, said the hospital system lost $1.6 million on its ambulance operation in fiscal year 2013.

"In talking with the towns, they didn't want to lose the EMTs that they've gotten to know and who really care about these towns," Ward said. "So we had to find other ways to serve the community."

But that does mean stretching service thinner.

Right now, St. Clare's has 15 ambulances in the five communities on weekdays, and seven on weekends, Ward said. It'll have 9 on weekdays going forward. On weekends the fleet of ambulances will be cut down to five.

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Some of those ambulances will be 24-hour operations. Others will be in 12-hour shifts. They'll be scheduled to have the most ambulances available during times of anticipated peak needs, Ward said.

The ambulances will take all the calls for emergency medical transportation and for inter-facility transportation, Ward said.

The regionalization plan has been met with some concern. Mount Arlington Council President Bob Sorge recently suggested his borough may have to explore options includinga private, paid ambulance service, the Roxbury Register reports.

"They are talking about now having ambulances roving around between five or six towns,” he said, according to the newspaper. “If there’s a major incident on Route 80, and these ambulances are tied up, what happens to the people here? I don’t think it’s right."

But Ward said in many cases, the delay in ambulance time won't be a key factor. Police or other municipal emergency officials are typically the first to respond to a call for help, he said. Next are paramedics — and that service isn't being changed, Ward said. In the case of a heart attack, for instance, it's the immediate care those responders provide that may save a life.

"You still have that first line. In terms of life-threatening calls, you're still getting law enforcement on the scene as quickly," he said.

Ward said he couldn't speak for the towns that may be considering alternatives to St. Clare's, but "the only option we're providing is the regional ambulance service."